We must seek understanding beyond the conflict in Iraq

By Georgie Anne Geyer

Published: Friday, September 14, 2007 at 6:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 11:07 p.m.

It is supposed to be teenagers, not nations, who are always thrashing around emotionally, searching for meaning.
But during this last week - as American generals and diplomats from our "frontier" in Iraq descended upon Washington to help us "understand" the Middle East today - I have felt that the war in Iraq has now thrown us to horizons far more complicated than we have ever known. Perhaps we're to the point at which we no longer understand who we really are - and it is we adults who now are the ones seeking meaning.
The impression that the administration wanted to leave this week was that we are slowly but surely moving out of Iraq - but that we won't abandon it. Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave ambivalent testimony before Congress that "success is not guaranteed, but attainable," even in the enormous "dysfunctionality" of Iraq. There is hope that the hapless Iraqi government will pull itself together; and 33,000 troops may leave by next summer.
The American people are supposed to drop their impatience and abhorrence with the war and think, "God only knows we want 'out,' but we have to give them time to do it right."
But in those underlying Machiavellian layers of assurance and contradiction, lies and cover-up, one can hear subdued, but real, voices saying that those assertions just "ain't so."
Indeed, one of the testifiers among the officials from Baghdad slipped and said that the stakes are too high to leave. Neocon Middle East specialist Fouad Ajami averred on TV: "We are in this for the long run; we are in Iraq to stay. The American public has not reckoned with that." Former ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad conceded recently that it would take "generations" to turn Iraq around.
Meanwhile, the fall issue of Foreign Policy magazine writes about a curious investment in Iraq on the part of a country that says it will eventually leave: "The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest the world has ever known. Thousands will live inside its blast walls, isolated from the bloody realities of a nation at war. Why has the United States built this place - and what does it mean?"
It means that this administration is not only pushing all the responsibilities of Mesopotamia onto our next president, but that it is also setting up our future presidents for indefinite service in Iraq.
Some who support this strategy do so for admirable, even moral reasons, as expressed by correspondents such as CNN's superb Michael Ware, who recently said on camera: "Whether you like it or not, America's footprint is going to be here for a long time. We've left the country too broken, too torn apart . . ."
But the administration's reasoning remains the same as that which got us into Iraq in the beginning. If you can believe it, Bush, Cheney and the neocons still believe in American Empire.
Whenever I hear the word, I think of British historian Niall Ferguson's compelling argument in the Los Angeles Times last October that the United States is "unlikely to be as successful or as enduring an imperial power as its British predecessor for three reasons: its financial deficit, its attention deficit and, perhaps most surprisingly, its manpower deficit. Rather cruelly, (I've) compared the American empire to a 'strategic couch-potato . . . consuming on credit, reluctant to go to the front line (and) inclined to lose interest in protracted undertakings.' "
In another cogent analysis, David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office, compares America today to the fall of Rome, listing in his paper (in part published by the Financial Times) "a decline in moral values and political civility at home . . . an overextended military around the world . . . and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government."
It is here, in these admittedly cruel comments, that we begin to face the reality of what our leaders' obsession with Iraq has done to us as a nation, to our standing in the world and to the health of our traditional system.
In the recent PBS program "Inside America's Empire," journalist Robert Kaplan, who has a uniquely independent view, traveled all over the world interviewing American troops who are now stationed at more than 700 bases in 130 countries. In unlikely places such as Mali, Colombia, Georgia and the Philippines, he finds small (the important element - small!) numbers of American service members advising local and national troops. They are aware of and respectful of the local culture.
This, Kaplan asserts, is the real alternative to more Iraq wars: training indigenous forces, anticipating problems, and creating something new, small and workable - and thus avoiding the unrealistic choice between isolationism or huge and unwieldy wars.
This approach is surely better than repeated Iraqs and Afghanistans, much less more attempts at empire-building, which we seem to do so abysmally and which lie so far outside our historical experience.
It remains puzzling to me that, for at least the first two years of the Iraq war, the American people responded so little to the absurdity and immorality of our nation waging war on a country we did not even know, that so few citizens spoke out to keep our young men and women at home, or voiced concern about our destruction of another country.
But now there is at least a discussion. It is not yet a very clear discussion, but it means that we are finally seeking some clarity and understanding. It's a good start.Georgie Anne Geyer writes for Universal Press Syndicate.

It is supposed to be teenagers, not nations, who are always thrashing around emotionally, searching for meaning.<BR>
But during this last week - as American generals and diplomats from our "frontier" in Iraq descended upon Washington to help us "understand" the Middle East today - I have felt that the war in Iraq has now thrown us to horizons far more complicated than we have ever known. Perhaps we're to the point at which we no longer understand who we really are - and it is we adults who now are the ones seeking meaning.<BR>
The impression that the administration wanted to leave this week was that we are slowly but surely moving out of Iraq - but that we won't abandon it. Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave ambivalent testimony before Congress that "success is not guaranteed, but attainable," even in the enormous "dysfunctionality" of Iraq. There is hope that the hapless Iraqi government will pull itself together; and 33,000 troops may leave by next summer.<BR>
The American people are supposed to drop their impatience and abhorrence with the war and think, "God only knows we want 'out,' but we have to give them time to do it right."<BR>
But in those underlying Machiavellian layers of assurance and contradiction, lies and cover-up, one can hear subdued, but real, voices saying that those assertions just "ain't so."<BR>
Indeed, one of the testifiers among the officials from Baghdad slipped and said that the stakes are too high to leave. Neocon Middle East specialist Fouad Ajami averred on TV: "We are in this for the long run; we are in Iraq to stay. The American public has not reckoned with that." Former ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad conceded recently that it would take "generations" to turn Iraq around.<BR>
Meanwhile, the fall issue of Foreign Policy magazine writes about a curious investment in Iraq on the part of a country that says it will eventually leave: "The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest the world has ever known. Thousands will live inside its blast walls, isolated from the bloody realities of a nation at war. Why has the United States built this place - and what does it mean?"<BR>
It means that this administration is not only pushing all the responsibilities of Mesopotamia onto our next president, but that it is also setting up our future presidents for indefinite service in Iraq.<BR>
Some who support this strategy do so for admirable, even moral reasons, as expressed by correspondents such as CNN's superb Michael Ware, who recently said on camera: "Whether you like it or not, America's footprint is going to be here for a long time. We've left the country too broken, too torn apart . . ."<BR>
But the administration's reasoning remains the same as that which got us into Iraq in the beginning. If you can believe it, Bush, Cheney and the neocons still believe in American Empire.<BR>
Whenever I hear the word, I think of British historian Niall Ferguson's compelling argument in the Los Angeles Times last October that the United States is "unlikely to be as successful or as enduring an imperial power as its British predecessor for three reasons: its financial deficit, its attention deficit and, perhaps most surprisingly, its manpower deficit. Rather cruelly, (I've) compared the American empire to a 'strategic couch-potato . . . consuming on credit, reluctant to go to the front line (and) inclined to lose interest in protracted undertakings.' "<BR>
In another cogent analysis, David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office, compares America today to the fall of Rome, listing in his paper (in part published by the Financial Times) "a decline in moral values and political civility at home . . . an overextended military around the world . . . and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government."<BR>
It is here, in these admittedly cruel comments, that we begin to face the reality of what our leaders' obsession with Iraq has done to us as a nation, to our standing in the world and to the health of our traditional system.<BR>
In the recent PBS program "Inside America's Empire," journalist Robert Kaplan, who has a uniquely independent view, traveled all over the world interviewing American troops who are now stationed at more than 700 bases in 130 countries. In unlikely places such as Mali, Colombia, Georgia and the Philippines, he finds small (the important element - small!) numbers of American service members advising local and national troops. They are aware of and respectful of the local culture.<BR>
This, Kaplan asserts, is the real alternative to more Iraq wars: training indigenous forces, anticipating problems, and creating something new, small and workable - and thus avoiding the unrealistic choice between isolationism or huge and unwieldy wars.<BR>
This approach is surely better than repeated Iraqs and Afghanistans, much less more attempts at empire-building, which we seem to do so abysmally and which lie so far outside our historical experience.<BR>
It remains puzzling to me that, for at least the first two years of the Iraq war, the American people responded so little to the absurdity and immorality of our nation waging war on a country we did not even know, that so few citizens spoke out to keep our young men and women at home, or voiced concern about our destruction of another country.<BR>
But now there is at least a discussion. It is not yet a very clear discussion, but it means that we are finally seeking some clarity and understanding. It's a good start.<BR>
<i>Georgie Anne Geyer writes for Universal Press Syndicate.</i><BR>